Most historians of thought would quarrel with Gray’s point of departure, but an especially pertinent and refreshing
critique of Gray’s line of analysis is Sankar Muthu’s Enlightenment Against
Empire (Princeton University Press, 2003). Though the Enlightenment Project
is today identified with imperialism, Muthu shows that a host of impressive
eighteenth century thinkers developed a profound critique of European empire,
anticipating many of the very objections now raised against "The Project."
* * *
The idea that 'the Enlightenment'
or an 'Enlightenment project' can be identified and that contemporary moral and
political thought should seek either to defend or subvert this project are prevalent
assumptions that steer scholars away from more productive engagements with the
manifold variety of Enlightenment-era philosophical arguments about
cross-cultural moral judgements and international justice. With regard to
empire and questions about cultural diversity, the most relevant aspects of
Enlightenment moral, social, and political thought, as commonly conceived, are
its commitments to (1) an ahistorical and universalist agenda that eschews any
interest in, or at the very least gives little value to, the particularities of
human life and cultural difference; and (2) a civilizing and imperializing
mission (both in the literal and metaphorical senses of the term
'imperialize'), which uses a doctrine of progress to justify the subjugation of
(among others) non-European peoples. . . . The persistent identification of
eighteenth-century thought with the complex set of evolving social, economic,
and political practices, beliefs, and institutions that are gathered under the
banner of `modernity'—and the nearly unanimous agreement that 'the
Enlightenment' championed universal values in a manner that was, rightly or
wrongly, at the expense of a number of particular identities, beliefs, and
practice—have either distorted or hidden from view a number of innovative
arguments about cultural difference, humanity, and imperial politics in the
Enlightenment era. . . .
Alasdair Maclntyre argues that
"[i]t was a central aspiration of the Enlightenment. . . . to appeal to
principles undeniable by any rational person and therefore independent of all
those social and cultural particularities which the Enlightenment thinkers took
to be the mere accidental clothing of reason in particular times and
places". In this view, the most damning feature of `the Enlightenment'
consists of its failure to appreciate the plural and diverse forms of human
life.' This emphasis on cultural diversity and moral pluralism, the idea that
we must begin to take such particularities seriously in any cogent moral and
political philosophy by viewing them as integral and meaningful to human life,
is often presented, then, as an indictment of modern thinking or as a
repudiation of either modernity as such or, more specifically, of 'the
Enlightenment project'. (260-61)
Muthu argues that the anti-imperialist
political philosophies of Denis Diderot (1713¬84), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804),
and Johann Gottfried Herder (1744¬1803) “cast doubt upon the accuracy and the
helpfulness of the philosophical and historical categories by which
eighteenth-century political thought is usually interpreted.”
These thinkers are not usually
grouped together; indeed, they could be viewed as fundamentally antithetical,
as representing some of the contrasting ideal-types of eighteenth-century
political thought: atheistic materialism, enlightened rationalism, and romantic
nationalism. To begin with, such labels grossly distort their actual
philosophies. Moreover, as I will argue, viewing these thinkers through the
lens of debates about international relations that concerned them deeply, in
particular those about the relationship between the European and non-European
worlds, brings out the remarkable extent to which their political theories,
though obviously unique to be sure, are nonetheless cut from the same cloth. Diderot's immense philosophical influence in
this period with regard to questions of imperialism explains in part the shared
intellectual disposition about the immorality of empire and the related
philosophical ideas upon which this disposition often rested: theories of human
nature; conceptualizations of human diversity; and the relationship between universal
moral and political norms, on the one hand, and a commitment to moral
incommensurability, on the other. (2)
This denunciation of
empire by eighteenth century thinkers is very different from the
morally impassioned accounts, best represented by Las Casas, which indicted the gross abuses of Spanish imperial power in the Americas but which still accepted the imperial mission itself. Whereas imperial rule in the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries “was widely endorsed even by the most zealous critics of
the violence perpetrated by Europeans in the New World,” in the late eighteenth
century a more radical critique arises.
Truly anti-imperialist political
philosophy emerges in the late eighteenth century among a broad array of
thinkers from different intellectual and national contexts. A significant group
of European political thinkers rejected imperialism outright as unworkable,
dangerous, or immoral—for economic reasons of free trade, as a result of
principles of self-determination or cultural integrity, due to concerns about
the effects of imperial politics upon domestic political institutions and practices,
or out of contempt over the ironic spectacle of ostensibly civilized nations
engaging in despotism, corruption, and lawlessness abroad. In confronting the
steadily expanding commercial and political power of European states and imperial
trading companies over the non-European world, the diverse group of thinkers
who assailed the injustices and countered the dominant justifications of
European imperialism include Jeremy Bentham, Condorcet, Diderot, Herder, Kant,
and Adam Smith. Moreover, such denunciations
of what Herder liked to call "the grand European sponging enterprise"
were complemented by more specific attacks upon European imperial or
quasi-imperial activities in particular regions. Along these lines, the most
notable efforts are Edmund Burke's legislative attempts to curtail and to
regulate the activities of the East India Company and his lengthy, zealous
prosecution of the impeachment of Warren Hastings, a senior East India Company
official and the Governor-General of Bengal. Burke argued that the British had failed to
respect the sovereignty of local Indian powers, and had accordingly enriched
themselves through illegal and unjust means, contributing not one iota, in his
view, to the well-being of Indians themselves. In making such arguments, Burke
was not a lone voice in the wilderness; rather, he raised concerns that were
shared by a number of his contemporaries, a fact that has been neglected even
by incisive scholars who have studied the connections between modern political
theory and empire.' Of course, such anti-imperialist political thinkers fought
an uphill battle, for defences of European imperial rule were still prevalent;
the Enlightenment era is unique not because of the absence of imperialist
arguments, but rather due to the presence of spirited attacks upon the
foundations of empire. (4)
Prevalent
accounts of what is called 'the Enlightenment' or 'the Enlightenment project'
make a series of generalizations that very often egregiously misrepresent,
blur, or hide from view entire strands of thought, some of which (were it not
for the distorting lenses through which they are viewed) might have been
understood to be nuanced and intellectually productive contributions not only
to the debates of the long eighteenth century, but also to a range of still
debated principles, intellectual tendencies, and institutions. Other strands
may not make such positive contributions, but may instead provide us with a
more sophisticated intellectual genealogy of problematic tendencies or arguments.
The term 'Enlightenment' itself, of course, may still serve a useful function
in contemplating eighteenth-century political thought, for there was a sense
among many of the most perceptive thinkers of the eighteenth century that they
were contemplating social and political affairs in a manner that was
historically and philosophically distinctive, and in a way that constituted (at
least in part) a break from some of their predecessors. It may be, then, that a
set of background social and political conditions, and perhaps even a kind of
intellectual temperament, could be plausibly identified, one that could orient
us toward productively studying some set of the political and philosophical
debates in the eighteenth century. (263)
* * *
There are no American voices in Muthu's account, though it would seem that Americans had a thing or two to say about empire in the late eighteenth century. Adam Smith is mentioned but his views are not explored by Mutha in this work; however, they support his larger argument. In his Wealth of Nations. Smith looked forward
to the day when the injustices of the Europeans toward the non-European world
would pass, and he forecast greater equality among the different quarters of
the globe. Such a multipolar system, brought about by the communication of knowledge that accompanied economic interdependence, would produce “that equality of courage and
force” that could alone compel independent nations to respect one another’s
rights.
The discovery of
America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are
the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind.
Their consequences have already been very great: but, in the short period of
between two and three centuries which has elapsed since these discoveries were
made, it is impossible that the whole extent of their consequences can have
been seen. What benefits, or what misfortunes to mankind may hereafter result
from those great events, no human wisdom can foresee. By uniting, in some
measure, the most distant parts of the world, by enabling them to relieve one
another's wants, to increase one another's enjoyments, and to encourage one
another's industry, their general tendency would seem to be beneficial. To the
natives however, both of the East and West Indies, all the commercial benefits
which can have resulted from those events have been sunk and lost in the
dreadful misfortunes which they have occasioned. These misfortunes, however,
seem to have arisen rather from accident than from any thing in the nature of
those events themselves. At the particular time when these discoveries were
made, the superiority of force happened to be so great on the side of the
Europeans, that they were enabled to commit with impunity every sort of
injustice in those remote countries. Hereafter, perhaps, the natives of those
countries may grow stronger, or those of Europe may grow weaker, and the
inhabitants of all the different quarters of the world may arrive at that
equality of courage and force which, by inspiring mutual fear, can alone
overawe the injustice of independent nations into some sort of respect for the
rights of one another. But nothing seems more likely to establish this equality
of force than that mutual communication of knowledge and of all sorts of
improvements which an extensive commerce from all countries to all countries
naturally, or rather necessarily, carries along with it.
Wealth of Nations, Book IV, vii. c.80, p. 626; hat tip to Gavin Kennedy, who excerpts this passage from Smith, and asks: “Did Adam Smith Uncharacteristically Predict the Course of Globalisation?”
Wealth of Nations, Book IV, vii. c.80, p. 626; hat tip to Gavin Kennedy, who excerpts this passage from Smith, and asks: “Did Adam Smith Uncharacteristically Predict the Course of Globalisation?”
* * *
The cover art for Muthu's handsome book is The Course of Empire: Destruction, by Thomas Cole, ca. 1836. Collection of the New York Historical Society.
